It's a pity politics is so polarizing in the US that this seems necessary. I guess it is a bit of an all hands on deck situation, but it makes me wonder what history has in store. Generally, all hands on deck situations precede disasters.
I think were witnessing FPTP democracy ripping itself apart by being stuck in a local maximum. The question is how much we are going to lose before we regain and hopefully surpass this local maximum.
US politics has always been interesting. There have been numerous energetic elections, contentious presidents, assassinations, and even a civil war. I suspect what we are seeing has nothing to do with politics, specifically, but rather is an artifact of global communications and modern information systems. Advances in technology give increasingly greater power to individuals.
It's ironic that during all the saber-rattling with China, we have pivoted away from vacuuming up the best scientific and engineering talent from around the planet. We should be stealing their best and brightest, not telling them to go away.
So what, China steals our tech. We should be pushing the bleeding edge aggressively enough that even when they do they're 5-years behind.
Circling the wagons is the quickest way to get left in the dust.
So is this evidence that there is widespread disdain for the current president among academics, or evidence that many non political organizations and institutions are getting politicized? News like this could be taken either way. One person might say "these institutions have no credibility anymore" and another might say "things have gotten so bad with this guy that people are feeling the need to step in." So which is it?
I would say latter, this coming from a very non political person who in the past didn't care if the president had a R or D next to his name. For the first time in my life I feel compelled to step in and vote to get back to somewhat normalcy
They authors of that article make it very clear that they are in the latter camp for a LONG list of well-supported reasons which are only partisan to the extent that Republicans have begun to self-identify as the anti-science party (as someone who grew up reading, say, Niven & Pournelle’s outrage at cuts to the space program, this didn’t used to be a simple litmus test).
It’s far from just academics, too - if you work in healthcare, for example, you probably aren’t jumping to defend Trump even if you normally vote for Republicans.
I doubt many of Trump’s supporters subscribe to Scientific American but it’s good that more publications speak out against the rampant anti-intellectualism he pushes. It will literally be the death of us all.
I understand the desire here but how do you think this can possibly work when politics has such key links with science? You can’t meaningfully have a response to the current pandemic or climate change, the defining issue of our century, by treating those as unrelated parts of life. From the other direction, funding for scientific is similarly heavily dependent on political support.
These days, I only hear it from my Republican friends who are trying to carve a line between saying that they still follow science and not wanting to formally leave a party which has little room for them any more.
[+] [-] brnt|5 years ago|reply
I think were witnessing FPTP democracy ripping itself apart by being stuck in a local maximum. The question is how much we are going to lose before we regain and hopefully surpass this local maximum.
[+] [-] squibbles|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cyphase|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
[+] [-] phobosanomaly|5 years ago|reply
So what, China steals our tech. We should be pushing the bleeding edge aggressively enough that even when they do they're 5-years behind.
Circling the wagons is the quickest way to get left in the dust.
[+] [-] betwixthewires|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acdha|5 years ago|reply
It’s far from just academics, too - if you work in healthcare, for example, you probably aren’t jumping to defend Trump even if you normally vote for Republicans.
[+] [-] julianlam|5 years ago|reply
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-americ...
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixel_fcker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redis_mlc|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zyxzevn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tupshin|5 years ago|reply
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-chloroquine-sar...
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/08/week-fact-che...
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/fact-check-white-house-offi...
[+] [-] hexadecimalMind|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acdha|5 years ago|reply
These days, I only hear it from my Republican friends who are trying to carve a line between saying that they still follow science and not wanting to formally leave a party which has little room for them any more.